Want to snoop on Aliens?

"…to seek out new life and new civilizations."

We've recently joined the Search for Intelligent Life in this Universe! That's right, Geek Culture's computers are helping analyze data from Outer Space looking for Alien messages. Sound cool? Want to help too? Read on....

Most of the SETI programs in existence today, including those at UC Berkeley build large computers that analyze that data from radio telescopes in real time. None of these computers look very deeply at the data for weak signals nor do they look for a large class of signal types. The reason for this is because they are limited by the amount of computer power available for data analysis. To tease out the weakest signals, a great amount of computer power is necessary. It would take a monstrous supercomputer to get the job done.

Currently, SETI programs could never afford to build or buy that computing power. So to get around this seemingly impossible problem, researchers have come up with a neat solution. Rather than a single huge computer to do the job, they will use LOTS of small computers, all working simultaneously on different parts of the analysis!

Here's where the Net comes in!

There are already thousands of computers that might be available for use, including the one you're using right now! The SETI@home people hope that you'll lend a hand by letting them "borrow" your computer while it's not doing anything.

They'll do this with a screen saver that can go get a chunk of radio data over the internet, analyze that data, and then report the results back to them. If you need to use your computer again, the program gets out of the way and only continues it's analysis when you are finished with your work.

If you want to learn more, or join in, visit SETI@home!

Hmmm, how do we know the these SETI people aren't really Aliens using this so called "program" to collect information about the human species?